In war, accounts of atrocities need to be treated with scepticism. Surveying a battlefield where he had once fought, the great Confederate general Stonewall Jackson turned to an aide and asked: "Did you ever think, sir, what an opportunity a battlefield affords liars?"
He meant that in war people, motivated by fear, self-interest or a simple desire to make sense of a confusing and terrifying situation, make things up. And in the midst of a fast-moving conflict it is more than usually (...)read more, comments...

Human rights organizations have cast doubt on claims of mass rape and other abuses perpetrated by forces loyal to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, which have been widely used to justify Nato’s war in Libya.
Nato leaders, opposition groups and the media have produced a stream of stories since the start of the insurrection on February 15, claiming the Gaddafi regime has ordered mass rapes, used foreign mercenaries and employed helicopters against civilian protesters.
An investigation by (...)read more, comments...

Growing public opposition to war here and in the US is starting to have an impact on the politicians. But whatever the spin this week by Obama and Cameron, the reality is the war in Afghanistan will continue for at least another four years, with ever escalating loss of Afghan civilian and military lives. Thousands are going to die in a war that has no credible purpose or viable "exit strategy", outside of an increasingly desperate search for a way to get out without the US and its allies (...)read more, comments...

26 June is the UN-decreed International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, this date commemorating Chinese hero Lin Zexu’s dismantling of the opium trade in Humen, Guangdong, an event that was a catalyst for the First Opium War of Britain versus China. Today Britain is complicit in the US Alliance restoration of the US-protected, Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry that now kills 100,000 people annually around the world.
In 2003 the Australian National Drug (...)read more, comments...

Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) versus Bliderberg: Where are Real Decisions Being Made?
by Eric Walberg Global Research, June 22, 2011
As the Western elite gathered in picturesque St Moritz to grapple with pressing world crises, the outsiders met in the bleak steppes of Central Asia.
Last week’s 10th Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in the Kazakh capital Astana highlighted how the major rivals to empire, led by Russia and China — themselves rivals, are (...)read more, comments...

Last Saturday Stop the War organised a very successful conference on Afghanistan and the war on terror. Over 300 people turned up on the day to discuss the issue and to attend a number of sessions including on the aftermath of the war in Iraq, the Middle East uprisings, working round parliament, women and war, imperialism and art and war. The audience represented the diversity of the anti war movement with an especially good representation of young people. Discussions involved a wide range (...)read more, comments...

Below is a review of “Churchill’s Secret War. The British Empire and the ravaging of India during World War II” by Madhusree Mukerjee. This book exposes how Churchill deliberately murdered 4 million Bengalis in 1942-1945, killing 6-7 million Indians in Bengal and adjoining provinces).
The important and very readable book “Churchill’s Secret War. The British Empire and the ravaging of India during World War II” by Madhusree Mukerjee (Basic Books, New (...)read more, comments...

In January the government of the United States of America saw fit to seize $4.207 million in funds allocated to Cuba by the United Nations Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria for the first quarter of 2011, Cuba has charged. The UN Fund is a $22 billion a year program that works to combat the three deadly pandemics in 150 countries. 3
"This mean-spirited policy," the Cuban government said, "aims to undermine the quality of service provided to the Cuban population and to (...)read more, comments...

Wow that was powerful, some people have the courage to speak up about the real truth & most others just act like sheep as ussual.
That Condolizza Troll Animal﻿ said to everyone in that room to go to hell, well thats her showing her true colors hey..
Well then hopefully she’ll burn in hell....read more, comments...

So now we are sending Apache jets to bomb Libyan civilians. An escalation in yet another bloody NATO war. Or, in the words of Colonel Jason Etherington, “it just brings something else to the party.”
The entire media have fallen into line. This is a war to protect civilians. This is a war to force Gaddafi to leave. As if Western governments, with their proud histories of human rights abuses across the world, have any moral right to make judgements on the government of Libya. (...)read more, comments...

We are particularly pleased that prominent artists and musicians who have been long-time supporters of Stop the War Coalition will be at Saturday’s Afghanistan and the War on Terror conference. They will be leading a much anticipated session on the role of art in the anti-war movement.
The artists include David Gentleman, whose "blood-spot" posters and placards for our demonstrations and events have gained worldwide renown; Peter Kennard and Cat (...)read more, comments...

A U.N. resolution justifies the targeting of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, a senior NATO military official with operational knowledge of the Libya mission told CNN Thursday.
Asked by CNN whether Gadhafi was being targeted, the NATO official declined to give a direct answer. The resolution applies to Gadhafi because, as head of the military, he is part of the control and command structure and therefore a legitimate target, the official said.
NATO has been ramping up pressure on the (...)read more, comments...

"Quebec NDP MP Alexandre Boulerice has yanked his support of a humanitarian flotilla bound for Gaza this month following media coverage about the endorsement and a’conversation’ with party leader Jack Layton.."
http://www.ottawasun.com/2011/06/08...
Urgent: Contact MPs NOW to Support the Canadian Boat to Gaza http://www.tahrir.ca/en/content/urg...
"...members of the coalition and the opposition are loyal friends to us, both with regard to their worldview and their estimation (...)read more, comments...

Mainstream politicians and media in look-the-other-way Apartheid Australia have an entrenched culture of self-censorship and censorship. Indeed this Mainstream lying by omission and commission obtains in all the other Western Murdochracies and Lobbyocracies, pseudo democracies in which :money buys truth”, “money buys perception” and “money buys votes”.
The Age newspaper, Melbourne, Australia, of the Fairfax media empire, is arguably the most progressive of (...)read more, comments...

BRICS: Push for Fair World Order
BY INDER MALHOTRA
DURING its short existence, BRICS, an association of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, has made an impressive showing. Initially consisting of the first four countries and known as BRIC, the association had held its first summit at Yekaterinburg in Russia in the summer of 2009.
The next year the second summit took place at Brasilia, and the latest and the third at Sanya in the Chinese island of Hainan. It was here that South (...)read more, comments...

The ongoing HRI investigation of the use of cluster munitions in Misrata in April 2011 has found convincing evidence the bombing was committed by US naval forces.
The bombing of Misrata
On the 15th April 2011, during the day, sub-munitions of a MAT-120 cluster munition were shown to Human Rights Watch (HRW) and C.J. Chivers, a journalist for the New York Times, in Misrata. On that evening, during ongoing clashes between rebel and loyalist forces, Human Rights Watch workers witnessed 3 or (...)read more, comments...

A noisy debate erupted in Australia recently because Greens Senator-elect Lee Rhiannon supported Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Apartheid Israel. Lee Rhiannon was attacked by the Australian Liberal Party-National Party Coalition Opposition and the Australian Labor Party Government (aka the Lib-Labs) who support anti-democratic, race-based, genocidal, war criminal, racist Zionist-run Apartheid Israel.
On the Australian taxpayer-funded ABC TV Q&A program (6 June 2011: (...)read more, comments...

Six British soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan in the last ten days. The father of one of them asked in an article in the Independent if his son’s death had been "a price worth paying", to which a serving soldier on leave from Afghanistan wrote in reply an emphatic "no". (SEE http://bit.ly/kL3f9b )
During that time, nineteen US soldiers were also killed, along with other casualties among the Nato invading armies.
As always, we do not have (...)read more, comments...

When other nations’ governments go off track, their people do something about it. In Tunisia and Egypt people have nonviolently claimed power in a way that has inspired Americans in Wisconsin and other states, as well as the people of Spain and the rest of the world.
Washington, D.C., is the weakest point in our democracy, without which state-level reform cannot succeed. Most Americans want our wars ended, our corporations and billionaires taxed, and our rights expanded rather than (...)read more, comments...

The far-right in Ukraine are acting as the vanguard of a protest movement that is being reported as pro-democracy. The situation on the ground is not as simple as pro-EU and trade versus pro-Putin and Russian hegemony in the region.
When US Senator John McCain dined with Ukraine’s opposition leaders in December, he shared a table and later a stage with the leader of the extreme far-right Svoboda party Oleh Tyahnybok.
This is Oleh Tyahnybok, he has claimed a "Moscow-Jewish mafia" (...)

Your support here: http://www.peaceinsyria.org/support.php
We, the undersigned, who are part of an international civil society increasingly worried about the awful bloodshed of the Syrian people, are supporting a political initiative based on the results of a fact-finding mission which some of our colleagues undertook to Beirut and Damascus in September 2012. This initiative consists in calling for a delegation of highranking personalities and public figures to go to Syria in order to (...)

At first glance, the results of America’s 2012 election appear to be a triumph for social, racial, and economic justice and progress in the United States: California voters passed a proposition requiring the rich to shoulder their fair share of the tax burden; Two states, Colorado and Washington, legalized the recreational use of marijuana, while Massachusetts approved the use of marijuana for medical purposes; Washington and two other states, Maine and Maryland, legalized same-sex (...)

In a 2004 episode of Comedy Central’s animated series South Park, an election was held to determine whether the new mascot for the town’s elementary school would be a “giant douche” or a “turd sandwich.” Confronted with these two equally unpalatable choices, one child, Stan Marsh, refused to vote at all, which resulted in his ostracization and subsequent banishment from the town.
Although this satirical vulgarity was intended as a commentary on the two (...)

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If there is one major inconsistency in life, it is that young people who know little more than family, friends and school are suddenly, at the age of eighteen, supposed to decide what they want to do for the rest of their lives. Unfortunately, because of their limited life experiences, the illusions they have about certain occupations do not always comport to the realities.
I discovered this the first time I went to college. About a year into my studies, I (...)

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Disillusioned with the machinations of so-called “traditional” colleges, I became an adjunct instructor at several “for-profit” colleges.
Thanks largely to the power and pervasiveness of the Internet, “for-profit” colleges (hereinafter for-profits) have become a growing phenomenon in America. They have also been the subject of much political debate and the focus of a Frontline special entitled College Inc.
Unlike traditional (...)

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Several years ago, a young lady came into the college where I was teaching to inquire about a full-time instructor’s position in the sociology department. She was advised that only adjunct positions were available. Her response was, “No thanks. Once an adjunct, always an adjunct.”
Her words still echo in my mind.
Even as colleges and universities raise their tuition costs, they are relying more and more on adjunct instructors. Adjuncts are (...)

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When The Bill of Rights was added to the United States Constitution over two hundred years ago, Americans were blessed with many rights considered to be “fundamental.” One conspicuously missing, however, was the right to an education.
This was not surprising given the tenor of the times. America was primarily an agrarian culture, and education, especially higher education, was viewed as a privilege reserved for the children of the rich and (...)

If there is one universal question that haunts all human beings at some point in their lives, it is, “Why do we die?”
Death, after all, is the great illogic. It ultimately claims all, the rich and the poor, the mighty and the small, the good and the evil. Death also has the capability to make most human pursuits—such as the quest for wealth, fame and power—vacuous and fleeting.
Given this reality, I have often wondered why so many people are still willing to (...)

How much corruption can a “democracy” endure before it ceases to be a democracy?
If five venal, mendacious, duplicitous, amoral, biased and (dare I say it) satanic Supreme Court “justices”—John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Anthony Kennedy—have their way, America will soon find out.
In several previous articles for Pravda.Ru, I have consistently warned how the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision is one of the (...)

Imagine, if you will, that the United States government passes a law banning advertisers from sponsoring commercials on Rush Limbaugh’s radio show or Rupert Murdoch’s Fox (Faux) “News” Network.
On one hand, there would be two decided advantages to this ban: The National IQ would undoubtedly increase several percentage points, and manipulative pseudo-journalists would no longer be able to appeal to the basest instincts in human nature for ratings and profit while (...)

LIVE, from the State that brought you Senator Joseph McCarthy, Wisconsin voters now proudly present, fresh from his recall election victory, Governor Scott Walker!
At first glance, it is almost unfathomable that anyone with a modicum of intelligence would have voted to retain Scott Walker as Wisconsin’s governor. This, after all, is a man who openly declared he is trying to destroy the rights of workers through a “divide and conquer” strategy; who received 61% of the (...)

A question I’ve frequently been asked since I began writing for Pravda.Ru in 2003 is, “Why did you become disillusioned with the practice of law?”
This question is understandable, particularly since, in most people’s minds, being an attorney is synonymous with wealth and political power.
I’ve always been reluctant to answer this question for fear it will discourage conscientious and ethical people from pursuing careers in the legal profession—a (...)